


Sutured

by Abka_Aten



Series: The Future of That Day [2]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abka_Aten/pseuds/Abka_Aten
Summary: For most people and spirits, transcending mortality inevitably changed them. Doumeki Shizuka would beg to differ.





	Sutured

**Author's Note:**

> Linked to the previous work but could be read as a standalone.  
> English is not my first language.
> 
> The poem is titled "Willingness", written by Chairil Anwar in March 1943

 

* * *

 

**Back**

_If you like I’ll take you back_

_With all my heart_

“There will be another option.” He said with a hard stare, harder than his usual unnerving ones.

Her face was pale, chalky white instead of the usual warmth complexion, it looked like all the blood had been drained from her visage, leaving her as a beautiful but empty corpse.

Golden and blue eyes, once full of happiness (despite her everyday groaning of slavery) peered back, feeling her faltering grip of reality solidifying back with his argument. This argument, his opinions which almost always clashed with her, had brought her back to the reality.

 

She could imagine his next sentences. He would offer his home. She could leave the shop and live with him in the temple. They could go to the college together, the spirits would not be bothering her if she stayed at the temple and stood beside him all the time.

 

Loyalty. Love. Inevitability.

 

This was her (sort-of) mentor’s legacy

 

Yuuko-san was her teacher (even with her questionable methods of making her _a damsel of distress_ every week and making Doumeki as the knight, shining armor) and Mistress (who suddenly declared that she was in mood for A Cleaning Day and slaved her part-time worker into cleaning _all of the rooms_ and cooking a feast on the same day); she was perhaps the only person Kimihiro proudly would call as Mother (even if she was a consummate drunkard half the time).

 

Loyalty. Love. Inevitability.

 

This power. She hoped that she could. Gods, she hoped that she had Yuuko-san’s strength.

She gazed back at Shizuka. No. Doumeki. And said with a self-conviction.

 

“No, there won’t be.”

 

He stood in silence for a long time, perhaps searching his Snow White in her and now he only found the Witch.

The man in front of him was not Shizuka. Shizuka was hers, Doumeki was not. Those golden eyes would never be hers again

She walked towards him. Closer and closer before engulfed those silent lips for a moment before turned her back, ignored the telltale of tears, back into the shop.

 

* * *

****

**Then**

_I’m still alone_

_I know you’re not what you were_

_Like a flower pulled into parts_

_Don’t crawl! Stare at me bravely_

 

He hated those clothes the most. Doumeki acknowledged that Watanuki was not the classical beauty but she had “something” that pulled you into her (after you could disregard her flailing and other strange things that happened to her).

 

Kunogi labeled that “something” as innate kindness.   

 

Today she was dressed in Yuuko’s elaborate kimono of crimson with patterned rose, hair decorated with golden sparrow hairpin. Doumeki had glimpsed the way she’d conduct with the costumer, who oddly also wearing dragon enameled hairpin despite her modern blouse and trousers.

She had looked aloof, slightly seductive and untouchable, a being of the spirit world with her otherworldly speech and demeanor, she was the Shopkeeper who had power and respect from the spirit world. 

 

“That woman before. What is she?”

They were having an afternoon tea with croquettes, ginger custard and rice puddings. Watanuki was relaxed, though the client looked a little bit different than her usual from the spirit world.

“The Dragon Queen from the East Sea. I’m not surprised that you didn’t know. She rarely descends from Heaven. She wished me for purging a human blood from a Half-God, her friend. I said no, the price was too steep.”

She gave him a maddening grin.

“She, her family and her people would fight against heaven. But then, heaven was full of corruption now, it would be better to destroy those diseased trees with dragon flame, and then the pure, new seeds would sprout and grow into a healthy forest.”  

 

He put back the rice pudding and gave her a long look. His fear and worry had become true.

This person was not his Kimihiro.

His Kimihiro who was full of kindness and love, who would try to protect Yuuko’s clients from the dangers of their own hands, who happily befriended with Kunogi even after half the school’s population disapproved their friendship and after Kunogi’s own confession of her curse; Kimihiro who insisted to help Tsuyuri to grow from her shell.

She was becoming more and more like a Witch.

 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Right.

Doumeki took his breath slowly before uttering his thought carefully.

“You are not her, you know. Watanuki that I understand and love would try her hardest to help-”

Her blue eye narrowed at his and predictably she exploded like Watanuki’s brand of angry fireworks that was rarely happening after she’d adopted Yuuko’s mask.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence! Doumeki, you impertinent bastard! I don’t care what you think and say about me but if you’d speak about Yuuko-san like that I would- ”

Arms tightly wrapped around her body, sharing his amber-like warmth. Her own arms were failing to free her from his secured embrace despite her protest and anger.

“Watanuki.”

She stayed still, finally. He wanted to caress and kiss her hair and undo the complicated, un-Watanuki-like hairdo. Knowing that it would irate her further, he settled for kissing the top of her hair.  

“You are Watanuki Kimihiro, the Shopkeeper. Not Yuuko-san, the Shopkeeper.”

He could feel her limbs sagged into him, could hear her sobs and ragged breathing that pained his chest.

It must be a heavy burden to bury her kindness and faced the clients with their various wishes and the _hitsuzen._ She would break like this, like a butterfly whose pupa had been broken before her time, making her unable to fly, unable to enjoy the sky and the flowers.

She would break like this behind the closed door that only Mokona, Maru and Moro as witnesses (if they were awake, the three of them were still sleeping since Yuuko-san was gone).

Alone, lonely and miserable. Powerless, unable to go outside the shop. Gods, this would crush Kimihiro if he did not dare to step in.

 

“Shizuka.”

It was the tone, her voice, the one that she’d murmured to herself while carrying a dead cat on that rainy day, a future with a lonely death. He hugged her more tightly.

“I’m sorry.”

* * *

 

**Now**

_If you like I’ll take you back_

_For myself, but_

_I won’t share you even with a mirror_

“Your mother knew?!”

Mismatched eyes widened in horror. Watanuki was horrified!

Gods, how the hell she could face Akane-san?! Doumeki had not attended dinner with his own mother for months and yet he casually helped to split the peas with Mokona, Maru and Moro for supper! (She ignored the fact that she couldn’t even meet with his Mother to apologize directly)

“Of a sort. Father is happy that I find a worthy lady that makes a Doumeki’s stoic countenance crumbled.”

His Father was happy with Shizuka’s heartbreak, wasn’t he? What kind of crazy family that was the Doumeki?!

That thought was halted for a moment; the other part of her mind had firmly found the way to redeem herself in front of his parents without meeting them.

Lots and lots of food. And snacks. And maybe alcohol.

Though, about their favourite food, perhaps she could ask Haruka-san.

“My Grandfather.”

She’d snapped back to real world. Watanuki would not be surprised that Shizuka had acquired a skill to read her mind now especially after he had predicted her breakdown and her boyfriend/lover/partner’s subsequent care of her.

“Haruka-san? I haven’t dreamed him for a while.”

“I’d like to know what you two were often talking about.”

“He’d like to give me advice. We usually enjoyed the blooming of cherry blossoms together.”

There was a slight unhappiness in his golden eyes that spread into his handsome features for a moment after hearing her confession.

_What the hell is that kind of expression? I did not dream of Haruka-san every day! We just liked to spend time viewing the Sakura’s blooming. I mean he was so pleasant to talk, unlike-_

“Doumeki! You, you bastard! Is this about Yuuko-san’s saying that I’d go AFTER the egg and the hen?!”      


End file.
